A brutally candid exploration of lust, obsession, and grief, deliberately blurring the line between romantic drama and psychological horror.

Fennell, whose reputation as a cinematic provocateur comes from a pair of hotly disputed previous films, Promising Young Woman, and Saltburn, seems to be setting up a kind of punishment for our expectations: If we were imagining one of world’s most endearing tragedies about passion being turned into a sexually frank and explicit drama, Fennell suggests strongly we think again. That more or less holds true for the rest of the film. As much as the trailer suggests an unhinged, psycho-sexual bacchanalia, the actual event is far more tame  —  at least, graphically  —  than what we might have imagined. 

The Matrix Resurrections feels like taking another red pill as your eyes are reopened to a world that you might not have visited for decades.

Wright is working more or less within his element here  —  stylized violence surrounded by biting satire (a recurring bit featuring a reality series called“The Americanos”  —  a Kardashian stand-in family  —  is particularly ripe)  — and proves a good match for the material, even as King’s plot starts grinding its gears in the third act.